Wicked Paradise (18 page)

Morgan watched the tortuous evisceration of the Sluagh, closing her mind’s eye to the sickening slaughter. “What...what happened to the baby?” she gasped out.

“The boy lived.” Pride filled WindWraith’s voice. “My child is the most powerful of his kind on Earth. He goes by the name of Alasdar. My beloved son awaits me in a land prepared for my return.”

Morgan’s mind revolted as air tried to spread her legs apart. WindWraith probed her mind, body, and soul, searching for a way inside all three. The treacherous tale sent shockwaves through her head. One tiny seed of doubt floated in her consciousness, despite her unbearable rapture. She fixated on that seed, grew it, and sick revulsion blackened it.

Another seedling bloomed. A chink spread in her mind, separate from her brain’s pleasure center. A second placating voice spoke to her, but she didn’t understand the words. She stopped her delirious thrashing and focused on the calming influence, finally able to ignore WindWraith’s relentless seduction.

Pure, radiant energy fused with her magic. The unfamiliar prickly power of stars. Elusive ether. Ryan’s starfire.

Another pod of power burst within her, this time an earthy energy. Morgan’s Druid senses instinctively raced to work with the allies, letting the two gifts of power fuse together. Combined energy expanded to mammoth proportions, ready to burst forth. The potency sizzled in her blood. She braided the three cords of power together, her intangible fingers numb and uncooperative.
Hurry, hurry!
she wailed silently.

Coarse tendrils of fog caressed her, hardening into a thick rod rubbing against her thigh, not taking further liberties. False waves of ecstasy throbbed through her even as she felt like she was crawling out of her skin. Fighting it, Morgan lost her concentration on the magic meld. The braid started unraveling, but ether rushed in and stopped it from breaking apart completely. A sharp stab in Morgan’s chest returned her to her desperate task.

Without touching her further, but manipulating her mind, WindWraith continued to drag her into its false seduction. She used everything at her disposal to fight the coercion. Finally, the earth, ether, and her tangible combination of elements became one. An ocean of exhilaration and magic crested inside her.

Morgan flung out her arms, her constraints dissolving into a puddle of bitter nothingness. Wicked magic discharged from her, deadly in its intensity. Brilliant azure energy ruptured outward, shattering her evil shroud.

WindWraith disintegrated, scraggly black particles blowing away on a silent, rank wind. The acidic stench of evil assailed Morgan’s nostrils. Her back bowed, her arms sagged to her sides. A massive energy surge evacuated from her body, ripping a shriek from her throat. Tortuous fire tore through her empty shell. She crawled into herself and waited for the emptiness to fill up and the pain to retreat.

“Be wary of those created from ether.” An airy malignant laugh slithered into her mind.

Strong arms gathered her close, and she floated into the darkness of welcoming stars.

Chapter 19

Ryan gathered Morgan close, alarmed by her deathly face and chilled body. Pale light dripped from her fingertips, melted into the ground. Had his ether been too much? He rested two fingers on her neck. Her pulse beat slow but steady. Ryan heaved out a relieved breath, even though it took every ounce of self-control from destroying everything in sight.

Harmless slivers of WindWraith floated above him, pinging him like sodden snowflakes. Ignoring the disintegrating onslaught, he pressed his mouth to Morgan’s in a gentle kiss. For the first time in his life, he wished he possessed his brother’s empathic healing skills. Using his bond to Morgan and his tracking abilities, he swept his senses inside and outside her body. No existence of evil appeared to reside within her. The weight crushing his chest let up, and he settled her lifeless body on a stretch of mashed grass. He tugged off his T-shirt and slipped it over her shoulders poncho-style.

On unsteady legs, he lifted her in his arms. Ryan battled the relentless jungle and his lagging energy on his trek to the grotto. Halfway there, something furry bumped his legs and rage coiled in his gut. He twisted around, primed to annihilate the threat, and stumbled over the winged foal. Morgan nearly slipped from him, and his arm muscles burned as they joggled against her weight. A gnarled tree trunk took his weight.

“Move it,” he grumbled as he stabilized his balance.

Unperturbed, the little beast nosed Morgan’s leg, whickering frailly. Barring its teeth and flattening its ears, the foal’s gold-flecked eyes rounded at Ryan. A pathetic growl rose in its throat.

“You little shit.” Ryan nudged his hip into the horse. He resumed his hike, repeatedly shoving the foal into the bushes. “Get out of my way.” Any other day, he’d laugh at the animal’s weird loyalty to Morgan. But not when the woman he was falling for, his salvation, was possibly on the edge of death in his arms. The foal’s devotion granted him the momentum he sorely lacked.

By the time he reached the caves, his arm muscles burned with tension. Although he’d carry Morgan to the ends of time, he was relieved to settle her onto the lined sleeping ledge. Careful not to touch her amulet, he removed it from around her neck. He covered her with the fur and combed her disheveled hair away from her pasty face.

“Morgan,” he whispered, brushing his lips over her mouth, wishing to breathe life into her. “Come back to me.” Tired and frustrated, he stared at her stuffed bag on the ground. What healing herbs might help? He racked his brain trying to remember anything useful his brother might have told him about his potions. Since healing wasn’t his forte, he never retained the knowledge.

“Damn it!” He rubbed his neck, stomped over to his pile of clothes.

Ryan dunked a piece of torn shirt in the crude container collecting water trickling down the granite walls. Holding the cloth against her cold forehead, he quickly realized his mistake. Flinging the rag away, he snarled low in his throat. “She needs warmth, idiot.”

It only took a few moments to stoke the fire and set several oak logs ablaze. As his gaze bounced from the drying rack to the tidy stores of fruit, he whistled in awe. “You’ve been busy, little raven.”

Herbs and flowers hung upside down from a drying rack near the fire. Tidy nooks along the walls held their respective belongings. He found replenished food and drink supplies in the coolest crevice he’d already walled off with uneven planks for a roughed-in cooler. Though not exactly hungry, he needed fuel to rebuild both his physical and magical energy. He ate some dried meat and fresh pineapples. The cool coconut and pineapple water he found in the cooler desperately made him wish it contained the energetic juice of the wild citrus fruit he’d discovered up island last week.

He downed the fruity drink, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth. A shuffling noise at the entrance set off his defensive radar, and he reached for his short spear, fire magic vaulting to his hand in a spray of sparks. The foal poked its head into the cave, allaying his jagged nerves. It crept along the walls, casting wary glances at Ryan and urgent stares at Morgan.

Ryan scowled. “You may as well come in.” He extended a pineapple wedge and coaxed the little beast into the darkening cave. The winged horse sniffed the fruit, chomped down on it, nearly taking Ryan’s fingers with it. The foal licked Morgan’s hand, and then settled down between the fire and the bed, watchful as a pit bull.

Flames devoured the firewood, and Ryan added more logs to the fire. He changed his filthy shorts and washed up. Skirting the winged horse, he crawled into bed and curled around Morgan, lending her his warmth. The velvet skin of her legs against his legs sent barbs of fire to every nerve ending in his body.

Ryan stroked her beautiful sun-freckled cheek, once again amazed she was flesh and blood. Not a dream. Drawn to her charm, her spirit, and courage, her determination and strength of will humbled him. That he wanted her, and may very well love her, he didn’t doubt. Nothing else explained the unfamiliar feelings welling up in his chest or his heart stopping anguish when WindWraith captured her. Never before had he experienced such fierce jealousy as when that bastard shadow seduced her. Or the inconsolable fury when Ryan believed he’d lost her.

When she accepted his star power, euphoria had almost done him in. Only a few on Earth—at least in his time—possessed the strongest element. Ether didn’t naturally occur in sorcerers or witches of the twenty-first century, and the few who ruled it were revered. The powerful element could easily kill someone able to draw it from another who possessed it naturally. When the island opened up and infused Morgan with its earthen power, he knew she was capable of accepting any pure elemental magic. No element was as old and pure as ether, the grandfather of all. Natural, pure earth magic was a close second.

Morgan’s lips parted and she moaned, seemingly lost in a dream. He rested his hand on her dry forehead, checked her steady neck pulse. Satisfaction unhitched the restraint on his heart another notch. Ryan placed his mouth on her lips, tasting the sweet life she exhaled in a uniform rhythm.

* * *

Disoriented and groggy, Morgan stirred, unable to move her sore, stiff body. A heartbeat later, she realized she snuggled in bed with Ryan. Her head rested on his chest, and his arm cradled her against his side. She felt his hardness pressed into her thigh, and sharp desire flared in her lower region. Knowing that he wanted her even in sleep was a heady feeling. Morgan inhaled the jungle’s loamy richness from his skin. She feathered her lips across his bare chest, wondering why she didn’t remember falling asleep in his arms.

Fragments of information jostled in her head, ending her blissful moment. She took a sudden sharp breath and felt for her powers, ensuring that WindWraith hadn’t caused any damage. Air, fire, and earth magic spooled together weakly, but intact.

It all rushed back to her. WindWraith had filled her mind with its needs and wants, stemming from a sadistic, violent history that began the day the Sluagh demon betrayed him. Morgan squeezed her eyes shut, and the prophetic visions she’d endured in sleep swept WindWraith’s evil aside. Trepidation cinched her chest as she concentrated on the visions.

A man similar to Ryan stood upon a deserted beach under the shadows of a steep natural sea wall. Entranced, he stared out to sea, watching the white-tipped waves roll ashore and recede. An air of desolation shrouded him. He shared Ryan’s muscular frame, height, and features. He wore his fair hair short. Identical blue eyes shimmered with sadness.

The man glanced down, studied his right hand, and his expression flitted to triumph. One corner of his mouth pulled into a slight smile. A large gold ring with an onyx center stone glittered on his finger. A ruby-eyed, golden dragon overlay the onyx, bordered by an engraved fist on one side of the band and a lightning bolt crusted with diamonds on the other. The familiar dragon tattoo on his arm flexed.

Was this Ryan in the future? Disappointment spread through Morgan like a fungus, insidious and encroaching. Again, she concentrated on remembering the vision.

The ocean curled and crashed on the beach, rolling within inches of the man’s bare feet. Water ebbed, leaving dusty-white foam spotting the sand. Seagulls screeching disturbed him, and he pivoted toward the figure that startled the birds into flight. A smile as intimate as a kiss spread across his handsome face. He extended a tanned hand. “It’s done.” He beckoned to the woman. “Come here, my love.”

Lauren Blackwell.

The blond woman looped her arms around his neck. She rubbed her body against his seductively, possessively. A tall woman, she was lithe and small breasted. A sensuous, sulky smile stretched her thin, berry lips.

“We did it,” she purred and pressed her lips to his. His large hands held her face, and his mouth covered hers hungrily.

The long kiss ended and Lauren quirked her eyebrows. “The covens are united. The pact is signed. Power is ours.”

“Not completely.”

Lauren fluttered her hand in the air. “You didn’t waste the last year scrounging the dead countryside for ingredients for that damned potion just for grins. It will work.”

“It’ll have to. Otherwise, we’ll all surrender to Fomorian control.” He eased her closer. “I love you.” He buried his face in her neck, his lips caressing her honeyed skin.

She stiffened and a blank mask descended over her face. “Alexander’s coming.” With a confident toss of her head, she swept her windblown hair out of her face and smiled radiantly at the approaching man.

Tall and lanky, Alexander dressed head to foot in black. Long ebony hair framed a cruel, bloodless face.

Lauren’s lover shook hands with Alexander. “The game’s in play.”

Pale, full lips pursed in a grimace, and Alexander’s whiskey eyes gleamed intensely. “Lauren.” He kissed her on the lips, his mouth lingering longer than acceptable on another man’s woman.

She slipped one arm around Alexander’s waist, the other around Ryan’s waist. Sharing a good-natured laugh, the three trod across the sand toward the cliff path.

Morgan pressed her fist to her mouth. Somehow, Ryan would leave the island and return to Lauren Blackwell to lead and restore balance to his people. She gnawed on a knuckle, stifling herself.

Had Fate willed that Morgan live her days on this island alone? Slapping her hand on her stomach, she realized she must accept the inevitable. Once they destroyed WindWraith, she’d cast the charms in the sea for the other star-crossed sorcerers. The bereft and lost Druids would have a newfound joyful life. They needed her magic and intervention, and she refused to deprive them of a gift so easily given. Not that she had any other recourse. Many people depended on her—and on Ryan. It was nigh impossible to ignore the reality of her destiny, all the sacrifices made by her father and herself, for the strange new existence granted her.

Wrapping her fingers around Ryan’s amulet, her nails dug painfully into her palm. She rubbed her cheek against his chest, and his arm hugged her closer, although he remained asleep.